Please note that this chapter is, as the cool kids are calling it these days, a cognitohazard. Continuing to read will instantly kill you.

I am you.

Of course, you died as soon as my perspective (the first person) replaced your own thoughts. The reasoning goes something like this (and feel free to stop reading if you have an allergy to metaphysics or postmodern fiction) —

You are currently processing these words from a narrator. Hi, that's me! Weirdly though, I'm in first person. So the question follows: where am I? I'm not on the page. There's just a bunch of squiggly lines here. Mostly, I'm in your head.

So that's the first problem. I'm in your head, and for all intents and purposes, I am a portion of your subjective experience. But if I'm you, that means that you're Terminus. And if you're Terminus, the second problem is that you die today.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Don't worry, you won't "die" die. But a portion of you is devoted to experiencing these words, and these words have created a simulation of yourself, and that simulation of yourself is looking directly to your left.

Since these thoughts were thought in advance, I (you, we) don't know what's to your left. So let's borrow from a nonsimulated you. Go ahead! This death is interactive! Take a glance at what the narrative of reality says is to your left, and then substitute it into this narrative.

You look to your left, and you see what's to your left, except there's also a door there. Old door, chipped white paint and a brass knob. Black plaque with an exclamation point and a promise of apocalypse desperately scrawled in it.

You are now me, and together we will die today.

Ideally you visualize putting your hand to this knob. Ideally you visualize walking through it. But as soon as you started reading my words, you became me, and died. So I'll do it for you.

I opened the door that I knew was a very bad idea to open.

Thank you for partially assisting with and subsequently giving your life to the plot!